​Professor Herman was the Edward F. and Elizabeth Goodman Rosenberg Professor of Art History. He earned his B.A. in English Literature from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. His field is American material culture, with specializations in American vernacular architecture, folk and ethnic arts, and historic preservation. His books include Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic (1997), The Stolen House (1992), A Land and Life Remembered: Americo-Liberian Folk Architecture (with Svend Holsoe and Max Belcher, 1989), Architecture and Rural Life in Central Delaware, 1700-1900 (1987), and Town House: Architecture and Material Life in the Early American City, 1780-1830 (2005). Professor Herman is co-founder of the Vernacular Architecture Forum and co-edited volumes III and IV of Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture. Currently Dr. Herman is developing a collection of essays on the critical relationships between objects, images, and narratives, with a particular emphasis on contemporary quilts. Dr. Herman served as Director of the Center for American Material Culture Studies and as a Senior Research Fellow in the University's Center for Historic Architecture and Design, an interdisciplinary research center supporting public service and student research in historic preservation. Professor Herman, who also served on the faculty of the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, Department of History, and the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, strove to integrate teaching, research, and public service in the study, interpretation, and preservation of American traditional arts and architecture. His courses included research and reading seminars on vernacular architecture, folk and ethnic arts, historic landscapes, material culture theory, and early American urbanism. Professor Herman received the University of Delaware's Excellence in Teaching Award in 1992, and he is a two-time winner of the Abbott Lowell Cummings Award for the best published work in North American vernacular architecture. He has also received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Independent Study and Research.